CFP Poll, Week 1: What It Means For The Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl
The first of seven Top 25 rankings decided by the 12-member College Football Playoff selection committee was released Tuesday night. You can get a better understanding of how the committee ranks teams with a couple of helpful breakdowns: one from BusinessInsider and another from Sports On Earth.
Here are the committee’s Top 25 teams through week nine of the season:
- Mississippi State
- Florida State
- Auburn
- Ole Miss
- Oregon
- Alabama
- TCU
- Michigan State
- Kansas State
- Notre Dame
- Georgia
- Arizona
- Baylor
- Arizona State
- Nebraska
- Ohio State
- Utah
- Oklahoma
- LSU
- West Virginia
- Clemson
- UCLA
- East Carolina
- Duke
- Louisville
Three of the top four teams in the committee’s newly released list are members of the SEC West. Despite the first poll heavily favoring the SEC, the remaining weeks of the season will see the best in conference face off against one another and there are bound to be significant changes in the top 25 by season’s end.
The Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl receives top teams from the SEC and the Big Ten once the College Football Playoff bowl games make their selections. However, if the season ended today, our potential picks from the SEC would be No. 11 Georgia or No. 19 LSU and from the Big Ten No. 15 Nebraska or No. 16 Ohio State.
If Georgia plays Nebraska, it will mark the second consecutive year both teams matchup in a bowl game. In 2014, the Cornhuskers played the Bulldogs in Jacksonville at the TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl, earning a 24-19 victory. Georgia and Ohio State have played only once – in 1993 the Bulldogs defeated the Buckeyes 21-14.
Nebraska has played LSU six times, the most recent matchup was in 1987. Four of the six matchups were bowl games (Sugar Bowl and Orange Bowl). The Cornhuskers totaled five victories and one tie against LSU. The 2008 BCS Championship Game was the last time LSU and Ohio State went head to head, with the Buckeyes falling to the Tigers 24-38.